Your Email Is Doing This Better Than You Are
by Steve Harper
I lived in New York on 9/11. It’s a long story and I won’t go into here, but essentially I was heading downtown on a crowded bus (to work) when the second tower fell. It took me 6 hours to get back uptown to my apartment when I realized my workplace was closed. Buses were packed. Subways weren’t running. Pay phones were out of commission: lines were busy or phones were broken. I didn’t have a cell at the time.
What does this have to do with email? Email was the only thing that worked reliably during that crisis and the days and weeks that followed. And the common subject line to New Yorkers was “Are You Ok?” I bring this up because it’s a great illustration of the power of email; it does what it’s designed to do: it keeps people in touch with people. Going through my head (and the heads of many New Yorkers at the time) were questions about survival. Would the city be hit again? Was it safe to ride the subway? Should I volunteer downtown? When would things be back to normal? The amazing thing about those “Are You Ok?” emails is that they reminded me of the truth: I was ok. I was whole and well, even as my city had been attacked. Even though people had died: I was ok.
Email can bring that kind of news and awareness: status reports, encouragement, even spiritual and moral support. Through the tool of email, back on 9/11 and after, I felt that support. It was profound. Today, there are a ton of unwanted emails that flow into my email box from time to time (I have a good spam filter). But as a conduit for communication, I know email to be effective, helpful and direct. How good are you at keeping in touch? How often do you reach out? Imagine a scenario similar to the one I mentioned above: You’re working on something – and feeling overwhelmed with anxiety and fear about the project, about the future. Next time it happens, send out an email.
Connect to someone. Ask for support. No matter what your creative work, connections are essential. Asking for help, letting people know what you’re doing and exchanging ideas are important parts of the landscape of maintaining an artistic life. Three of my Core Creative Strategies attest to this [#8 (Develop Community), #10 (Talk Yourself Up) and #11 (Share your work…)]. Even if you’re shy, you NEED to be reaching out in order to keep your projects going – in order to find collaborators, get answers, get an audience or an agent. There are a million ways to reach people. Email is a great way. I don’t have to convince you: you’re reading this email. Here are some ways that you can harness the power of this tech tool that you might not have thought of:
1. Daily interaction with a supportive friend: There’s no need, in our modern world, to isolate around ANYTHING, much less our creative work. Find a person you can email daily with a to-do list. Find someone to be accountable to.
2. Market yourself: Create and send a newsletter to clients, friends and family. Let people know what you’re doing. People want to hear from you!
3. Maintain relationships with professional contacts: Email is terrific for connecting to agents on the go, gallery owners and editors. It’s an easy way to keep in touch daily, weekly or monthly. No one should wonder what you’re up to or what you’re working on. Get in touch!
4. Email coaching: Eric Maisel, author, PhD (and one of my coaching mentors) invented this method. His book Coaching The Artist Within is one of my favorites. Coaching by email is simple, fun, direct and can be done anywhere. Receive expert feedback and support by email. It’s tremendously effective – and one of the most inexpensive ways to have someone ride shotgun on your process.
You use email all the time. And you can discover new ways to lean into the power, ease and energy that it already has. Don’t let your email program be better than you are at keeping in touch. Use it more intentionally and increase your ability to find and maintain supportive connections in challenging times and in good times.
Steve Harper attended Yale as an undergrad, the A.R.T. at Harvard for acting school and studied playwriting at Juilliard. He has been doing personal creativity coaching since 2008 and has studied extensively with Eric Maisel and The Creativity Coaching Association. Harper is a professional actor and writer with a passion and commitment for coaching artists who want to pursue their creative work while keeping a healthy balance between their professional and personal lives. Steve completed the New Warrior Training Adventure in 2005. Visit his blog: http://www.yourcreativelife.com/
– is a deeply personal issue that everyone decides for himself. Sometimes the price is high, sometimes low. But this is not very important for life. Life is an interesting thing. And the price on Viagra – too.
